# Hillview: A trillion-cell spreadsheet for big data

## TL;DR

Hillview is a distributed spreadsheet system that enables interactive exploration of extremely large datasets, using visualization sketches to achieve scalability and responsiveness across multiple servers.

## Contribution

Introduces vizketches, a novel visualization technique that combines data summarization and graphics principles to scale interactive data exploration to trillions of cells.

## Key findings

- Handles datasets of tens of billions of rows and trillions of cells.
- Achieves high interactivity and responsiveness in large-scale data visualization.
- Outperforms existing systems in scalability and speed.

## Abstract

Hillview is a distributed spreadsheet for browsing very large datasets that cannot be handled by a single machine. As a spreadsheet, Hillview provides a high degree of interactivity that permits data analysts to explore information quickly along many dimensions while switching visualizations on a whim. To provide the required responsiveness, Hillview introduces visualization sketches, or vizketches, as a simple idea to produce compact data visualizations. Vizketches combine algorithmic techniques for data summarization with computer graphics principles for efficient rendering. While simple, vizketches are effective at scaling the spreadsheet by parallelizing computation, reducing communication, providing progressive visualizations, and offering precise accuracy guarantees. Using Hillview running on eight servers, we can navigate and visualize datasets of tens of billions of rows and trillions of cells, much beyond the published capabilities of competing systems.